Rare Neil Young from 1974: Live, Acoustic, and Unleashed at a Surprise Show at The Bottom Line in New York City

During Neil Young's long, illustrious career, certain solo shows have attained mythic status, thanks to the practice of bootlegging. Famously, Young played a surprise set at The Bottom Line in New York after a Ry Cooder show. The only known recording of the show was made on a cassette by an audience member, and the 11-song solo set from May 16, 1974, is now being released for the first time on vinyl. 

Included here are "Pushed It Over the End," a song inspired by the kidnapping of Patti Hearst, plus live previews of "Long May You Run," "On the Beach," "Motion Pictures" (the only live performance to date), and "Pardon My Heart." ("Long May You Run" would appear as the title track for a 1976 collaborative LP with Stephen Stills, and "Pardon My Heart" would appear on Young's 1975 album Zuma.)

In the Citizen Kane Jr. Blues liner notes, Young writes: "[Ry] was great...I had a bunch of new songs and was itching to play them... I took my guitar with me to the club and I played a guest set after Ry played. I had just recorded the album On the Beach in LA about a month before and had a bunch of new and even newer songs to play. This is the only recording of that night, recorded from a tabletop in the club on a cassette recorder. We took some of the extraneous noise out of the recording but in order to preserve all the music and vibe, we left quite a bit in. What you hear on this recording is what happened that night."